Time to update this very LONELY blog of ours!

Ok, I'll admit it...I am apparently a horrible blogger!! The last time I wrote anything here was in March of 2008! That's obviously over a year ago, so it's time for me to catch y'all up on what's been going on in our lives since then.

So, we had Spring Break in Fort Morgan/Gulf Shores, Alabama at the end of March. The boys and I had a great time with Cota, Kelsey, Sydney, and A.J. Even to this day, the boys still talk about how much fun they had on that trip!

The next adventure to happen was that Jason & I went on a belated honeymoon to Tulum, Mexico (Riveria Maya area) at the end of April...it was WONDERFUL!! The resort was pretty secluded, the beach was beautiful, and it was so nice for the two of us to get away for a few days together!

The month of May had my dad's and Jason's birthdays, was busy with end-of-year school activities, and then we kicked off the beginning of summer with our annual trip to the Lake of the Ozarks for Memorial Day weekend. We always love being at the Lake!

I don't remember if there was a lot happening in June, but the boys definitely enjoyed being out of school and living a more relaxed life. Oh, wait! I just remembered that at the end of June we went on our vacation to the Lake of the Ozarks for 12 days. We usually start our annual vacation there on the last full weekend of June and go through the 4th of July holiday weekend.

In July, we celebrated Grant's 14th birthday a bit early with a bunch of friends from our little Lake neighborhood. The rest of the month was spent getting the boys' 4-H projects ready to exhibit at the McLean County Fair.

August started off with the McLean County Fair and the boys both did really well with their exhibits! Luke's photography exhibit and Grant's electricity exhibit were nominated to be judged at the Illinois State Fair and they both received Superior Awards (the highest award possible) for their exhibits. We were quite proud of their accomplishments! My birthday was on the 8th...made it another year! At the end of the month we went back to the Lake of the Ozarks for the Labor Day weekend holiday and were able to have a fun, yet relaxing, time before the boys headed back to school.

On September 2nd, Grant started his 8th grade year and Luke started his 7th grade year. They were both in the same classroom with Mrs. Bacon. I was a bit nervous about them being in the same class, but they did well together.

October 20th was my mom's birthday and it was nice to enjoy the fall weather and beautiful colored leaves on the trees.

Thanksgiving was great and we had a wonderful time spending it with our family! The day after Thanksgiving, we got about 8 inches of SNOW!!! Welcome to the cold!! Did I ever say how much I dislike the cold?!

Of course, December brings Christmas and all of the wonderful sights, sounds, and traditions associated with it. This year, Jason and I gave the boys a surprise Christmas gift of a family trip to Mexico!! They were pretty excited and couldn't wait to be there! We enjoyed the two weeks of Christmas break as well.

The boys went back to school on January 5th and by that time I was relieved to have a quiet house during the day again! :o) We celebrated Luke's 13th birthday on January 30th and that made us offically the parents of TWO teenage boys! Oh the joys of puberty!!

Jason and I were supposed to go on an anniversary trip to the Dominican Republic to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary, but his bosses had other plans and scheduled meetings for the week were supposed to be gone. Great! Thank goodness for travel insurance! We quickly made plans to take a substitute trip to Florida to go wakeboarding in April.

March brought Spring Break and the boys and I were ready for it! We didn't go anywhere due to the upcoming trip to Mexico at the end of April, so we just relaxed for the week.

Ahhh, April!!! This month started off with Jason & I heading to Orlando, Florida with a group of fellow wakeboarders and waterskiiers from the Liquid Edge family for some fun on and off the water! Thursday, April 2nd, we got off the plane in Orlando and were immediately on our way to the Orlando Watersports Complex where we got to wakeboard using a cable pulling us around the lake. It was an interesting experience. On Friday, April 3rd, Jason had a slalom ski lesson with Wade Cox and I had a wakeboard lesson with Will Christien (LOVE HER!). We went to dinner Friday night at a restaurant that was owned & operated by a friend of Will's. Jason and I ate some of the best tasting food that we'd had in a long time. Saturday, April 4th, we were both at Will's house and lake to get in a couple of wakeboarding sets. I learned 4 new types of 180s and was exhausted by the end of the day. Jason was sore from slalom skiing on Friday, so he only got one set in during the morning run. We were up early on Sunday to head back to the airport to go back to the cold weather of Illinois. The very next day...it snowed!

We only had three weeks at home before we were packing up to go on our family trip to Puerto Aventuras, Mexico! This was Grant and Luke's first trip out of the country and they loved it! We were at our resort for about an hour and they'd already declared that, "this is the best vacation EVER!" It was nice to spend time together relaxing, having fun, and trying new things. The only thing that I didn't enjoy while we were gone was the whole "Swine Flu" hoopla...it reared it's ugly head while we were in Mexico. We had to be examined upon our arrival at the Cancun airport to make sure we didn't have any symptoms before we were cleared to even check-in for our flight home.

We arrived back home from our trip to Mexico on May 1st. On May 3rd I received a call from the boys' Principal and she told me that due to us being in Mexico, the IL State Board of Health & the IL Board of Education were recommending that we all be symptom-free from the Swine Flu before the boys could return to school! Well, boys...looks like you have a few more days of vacation & doing your schoolwork at home! They returned in time to participate in their school's annual Race for Education and they had a great time doing that.

My dad's birthday was on May 12th...he turned 56.

On May 15th, the boys' had a Science Fair at school. Luke's entry was about growing a crystal garden. Grant entered a robotic crane that he'd designed, built, and programmed. Both of the boys did a great job with their presentations! Later we found out that Grant was one of the few students to receive Best of Show for his project and presentation...way to go, GRANT!!!

Jason celebrated his 35th birthday on May 17th....Happy Birthday, sweetie!!! We had a good day of hanging out at home and enjoyed being together. Jason said that it was his best birthday yet!

We went to the Lake of the Ozarks for Memorial Day weekend '09 and had an awesome time with our family and friends that joined us at the Lake for the first time! We did a lot of wakeboarding and other water activities.

On the evening of Friday, May 29th, Grant and Luke participated in their school's end of the year program. Luke played in a handbell choir and did very well with the rest of the ensemble! Grant played "Amazing Grace" as a solo piano piece and it sounded great! We were also very excited to see Grant go up on stage to receive an award for having the 3rd highest GPA in the entire school! His average was 96.3% for the entire school year! We are very proud of his accomplishment!

WHEW!!! I am now current and up-to-date with this blog!! That was a lot of updating! I hope to be more timely with our family news and happenings from here on out. We're looking forward to Summer and I'm sure that we'll have some interesting things to tell about on our blog.

Catch y'all later!!!

(Amber....I finally updated our blog!!! Are you happy now?!)